Once, two friends were walking through a dark quiet forest. All of a sudden a huge bear attacked them. One of them climbed up into a tree but the other, not being able to climb, fell down as if he were dead; for we all know that a bear will not harm a dead man. The bear looked at the man on the ground and sniffed him several times, and then it walked off. The other man came down out of the tree and asked what the bear had whispered in the first man’s ear and the man answered: “don’t trust a man who leaves you when you are in trouble.”
And the moral of the story is, in Shakespeare’s words:
He that is thy friend
indeed,
He will help thee in
thy need:
If thou sorrow, he
will weep;
If thou wake, he
cannot sleep;
Thus of every grief
in heart
He with thee doth
take a part.
These are certain
signs to know
Faithful friend from
flattering foe
Sonnet XXI
